Rise & Fall Of The US Dollar: 1800 – 2008

Sean W. Malone, Saturday, August 29, 2009 at Logicology

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Secrets Of The Federal Reserve

President Obama has re-nominated Ben Bernanke to sit as Chairman of the Federal Reserve for another four-year term, following glowing praises of Bernanke’s supposed financial genius in most of the media for his handling of the current economic crisis, while Obama himself has suggested that Bernanke helped save the US from another Great Depression.

Paul Amery commented the other day at Seeking Alpha that:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s speech to the Jackson Hole symposium, delivered on Friday, has already been dubbed a “we saved the world” declaration by some commentators.    

In fairness to Bernanke, nowhere in his remarks does he make such a grandiloquent claim, unlike British Prime Minister Brown, who did just that last December in the U.K. parliament.

However, underlying Bernanke’s narrative of events is the U.S. central bank’s conviction that the panic that hit global markets last fall was a kind of act of God, a phenomenon that was “collectively irrational”, and which the Fed contained by its policy of “lending freely against sound collateral.”

Is this fair, or does Bernanke’s speech signify that U.S. policymakers have understood nothing and learned nothing?

[snip]

Bernanke asserts in the final paragraph of his speech that “we have avoided the worst”. He may be right, but I wouldn’t bet on it. I’m more inclined to agree with Willem Buiter, who wrote recently in the Financial Times that “[t]he US Treasury, the Congress, the Fed and the other financial regulators have, through their behaviour since August 2007, confirmed and re-inforced the incentives for excessive risk taking by crossborder banks and any other financial institution deemed too systemically important to fail. The groundwork for the next financial boom and bust cycle, worse than what we are just emerging from, has been put in place.“

So exactly whose world has Bernanke “saved”, if anyones?

By David Swanson

It seems almost trivial to accuse someone who launched an illegal war that has killed over a million people of torture.  But if we are going to prosecute the lowest ranked torturers, it makes sense to look up the chain of command.

There is no doubt that George W. Bush conspired to commit torture, cruel and inhuman treatment, and murder.  How do I know?  He said so.

In his January 28, 2003, State of the Union, Bush said: “All told more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries.  And many others have met a different fate.  Let’s put it this way:  they are no longer a problem to the United States.”  

Too vague and wink-wink for you?  Try this:

Also at Antemedius